BJP failed to convince anyone to contest against Abhishek, mocks Trinamool

Kolkata: A prolonged delay in announcing the name of their party’s candidate for the Diamond Harbour Lok Sabha (LS) constituency has become a major embarrassment for the state BJP leaders during their electoral campaign.

Trinamool Congress (TMC) is mocking the BJP as it is yet to announce its candidate for Diamond Harbour. The ruling party in Bengal is also saying that the BJP so far “has failed to convince anyone to fight against Abhishek Banerjee”. Diamond Harbour has attained the stature of being the most high-profile LS constituency in Bengal over the past 10 years. It was also learnt that the BJP considers Diamond Harbour as a “tough” seat.

TMC spokesperson Kunal Ghosh recently urged Union Home minister Amit Shah to contest from Diamond Harbour. Confident Abhishek had also made the same appeal to Shah to contest against him.

A BJP leader on condition of anonymity said that they don’t know why central leaders are taking so much time to name its candidate and this has given TMC a major weapon that they are using in the poll campaign. The ruling party in Bengal is, however, trying to highlight the BJP’s failure in announcing the name of their candidate in Diamond Harbour. ISF leader and Bhangar MLA Nawsad Siddiqui had initially expressed his desire to contest against Banerjee from Diamond Harbour which is a minority-dominated constituency. But he backtracked later. Left, Congress and ISF took a long time to announce their candidates as they tried to forge an alliance that had failed eventually.

The Diamond Harbour LS seat alone has about 53 per cent Muslim voters. Abhishek in the 2019 LS elections, secured 7,91,127 votes and defeated Nilanjan Roy of BJP by a margin of 3,20,594 votes. He has been holding the seat since 2014. He in his debut in 2014 LS polls had won the seat by a margin of over 70,000 votes. In the 2021 Assembly polls, all the seven segments that fall under the Diamond Harbour Lok Sabha seat were won by TMC.

The date of voting for the Diamond Harbour Lok Sabha Constituency is June 1 in phase VII. The results will be announced on June 4.